Jane08

We play fetch with our male grey and he loves it. We use an in door hockey ball and roll it towards him and he throws it back. He also hops on the window sill and runs along it and likes me to chase him and pretend to catch him. I then pick him up and kiss his back and put him down again and he runs off and I chase him again. All the time he is talking away. Sometimes he grabs my finger with his foot and rolls on his side and like to be tiggled under his wings. We also play peek-a-boo. I hide around the corner and peak out at him and say peek-a-boo. He then says it back and then after awhile he flies around the corner to me and I give him a big kiss.

Poppetparrot the same thing applies with going back in the cage. You have to make the reward for going in worth it. We have also had problems ours going back in the cage and not once have we even forced them in. Yes I have sat there for 20-30 min wondering if they will ever go in and been late for work numerous times. We always use their favourite treat to go back in. For our female it is a palm nut and as soon as she sees that she flies to me, I let her munch into it as I am walking her towards the cage and place her in the cage with her palm nut. Our male is a bit harder and the treat used to change everyday, but now we are lucky he goes in easy without a treat, but I still give him something nice when he goes in.

I would leave him, if he doesn't want to come out don't force him he will start to hate you for it. When he is biting you he is trying to tell you something (he doesn't want to come out) and you are not listening. Respect his wish not to come out, but that doesn't mean he won't come out. If you want him to come out you have to make it fun for him to come out, to the point where he can't resist it and comes out by himslef. Watch what his favourite things are in the cage and have those outside, use his favourite treats to entice him out of the cage. Sit near his cage with all his favourite toys and make a big fuss over them like you are having so much fun and leave the door open. There will come a point where his curiosity will get the better of him and he will come out. Let him decide to come out, your job is to make it so irresistible that the reward for coming out of the cage is so much bigger than staying in the cage.

I know it is hard but please don't get upset about them liking another someone else, you can still build a relationship with them. My boyfriend bought his first grey for himself and in 3 days the bird fell in love with me and my boyfriend was devastated (even cried, hehe). We did exactly what M2MM posted and I backed off and let my boyfriend feed the bird all treats and the once a day hand feeding that we have always continued with to help with bonding. My boyfriend did everything for that bird and dedicated a lot of time, cleaned the cage, trained him to step up etc for about 3 months and finally there was a break through and they developed a relationship that my boyfriend is happy with. It takes a lot of time and patience but it can happen. It got to the point where my boyfriend would say to the grey do you want formula and he knew exactly what that meant and would fly to my boyfriend and snuggle with him and then he would get formula. I really think for us that my boyfriend spending a lot of time training the bird really helped. Just training normal stuff like to step up. It will get better I promise you, if you are patient and spend a lot of time working on this.

She is 6 months. I planned a strategy last night for this morning and it went really well. Got them both up and fed them straight away, so all quiet. Then when I saw that they were finished I took them into the shower with me and sat them up the top of the shower. After I had finished I left them in there with the warmth and the door open so that they could fly out if they wanted (they like to sit in the bathroom sometimes for some reason). They sat there and chatted/whistled away and the warmth must have got to them becuase they fell asleep. So cute. When they woke up and came out she started with the noise so we did some training with her to get her mind on something else. That worked as well. By this time it was cage time, so they went back in and all was well. One morning down, a million more mornings to go.

We use sunflowers seeds (we soak them in water overnight so they are quite soft). We just watched to see what he went nuts over and then cut down on it for his normal diet and just used it for training.

Thanks M2MM we already have her book and attended a workshop by her. She really helped my boyfriend with bonding issues with our male grey and teaching him to step up. Our grey is half way through the video doing step up training.

Just wondering how loud your greys get and what is considered normal and what would be considered as screaming. Our female gets really loud in the mornings when we let her out and in the evenings. Now I know they vocalise normally at these times, but how loud should it be. She actually goes nuts (flies from room to room like a mad woman,making bird sqwarking noises) and then makes this loud sqwark that can go on for maybe 30min, sometimes longer and it drives me insane. We have thought of all the reasons she makes it; Hunger (she is eating and then stops to make the noise), contact call (we are all in the same room with her, so there is no one to call), attention (try to give her attention and she doesn't want it). She is 6 months and it really sounds like a baby noise. Do you think she will grow out of it, or should we be worried that it will turn into something else (dreaded screaming, which I classify it as now but maybe it isn't) Things we have tried to stop her doing it: - Ignore it - Try to replace it with another word - Give her something else to do to occupy her so she won't make the noise - Give her food. She actually eats her food and seems to make the noise between picking her food out of the bowl - Offered water Nothing seems to help

Looks as though Jack is trying to take a dump, hehe. Do you think you will get another grey and call her Jill Only kidding, seriously jack is a cool name, he is just so cute and I love the baby noises they make at that age and feeding time is so funny to watch. We were just at the breeder where we got our 2 and they had about 7 babies all about 3-5 weeks. Our male grey saw them and heard them tweeting and looked at me like oh no you aren't going to bring another one home are you. The last time we visited we did bring another one home.

We took our 2 outside for the first time about 3 weeks ago, in their cage that is. They absolutely loved it. What we did was threaded branches through the top of the cage on one side that acted like a shelter just in case they got scared and wanted to hide somewhere. We also put other branches around for them to chew on. We also put them on a table so that they were higher up and could look around and feel safe. One of our greys sat in the sun sleeping while our male sat under the shade and talked. Other birds landed near them and they just looked at them and continued catching a few rays and chewing their branches.

One of our greys is 13 months and his eyes are that yellow, especially when we have him out in the sun. He also makes those noises that were on the you tube video, mainly to our female grey, but sometimes he does do it to me. He started to talk when he was about 6 months and now learns a word or phrase every week and I call him Mr Jabber jaws as he never stops talking. Our female who is 6 months now can only say 2 words. You wait one day it will be one word and then you won't be able to shut him up, hehe.

Our second grey doesn't like me either, so I know what it is like. My boyfriend went away for 10 days recently and I thought oh no here we go. Anyway she had no choice but to get along with me. It actually went really well and in that time I did heaps of step up training. She even let me scratch her head one night for like 2 minutes which has never happened before. The one advantage I had though is our male grey who loves me, so she saw us playing and doing stuff and got jealous and would fly down to join in the fun.

I can understand how it would get her down, as I bet she is thinking why doesn't he like me. We had the exact same problem with both of ours. Our male hated my boyfriend and wouldn't even be in the same room with him and would bite him. I backed off and let my boyfriend do everything for him, feed him (we still hand feed ours with formula to help create the bond), treats, helping him out of the cage, cleaning the cage. It took ages but worked and now they are the best of friends. Now we have a female grey and she loves my boyfriend and hates me. I just give her time and don't even try to touch her, just talk to her. I also train her with step up so she gets used to being on me. I use treats to train her. I only train her when she is receptive and I read her body language so I don't interact with her when it looks like she will bite. She has bitten me and I just tell her no and put her down. I also randomly give her treats and tell her how good she is. I also play with her favourite toys where she can see me and occassionally she will come down to interact. Good luck, it will just take time and patience.

Oh look at them all, would make me want to take them all home. I totally understand why there are so many in the sanctuary, as you are completely right that people get them thinking they are a fun pet (many clips on you tube which show this) and then realise that they take a lot of work and when they don't turn out as they thought they get rid of them.

It is an interesting topic as some people say don't put them together and others say yes put them together. After consulting a behavioural expert we decided to go with the putting them in the same cage. As long as the cage is big enough there should be no problems with the space issue. I have no worries about them bonding together as I feel their life will be enriched from this bond and being able to have company while we work 8-5. I guess for us the fact that they might not bond to us was not a big enough issue to decide not to put them together. We felt that if this could enrich their lives then we would do it. I will feel honoured just to be a part of their flock and there are many ways we can interact with them. We only took the decision to house them together after carefully observing their behaviour together. If they had showed any sort of sustained aggression towards one another then we would not have done it. How can you be certain that even if you keep them in separate cages that they will not bond together?

After 2 months of slowely introducing our greys to each other, they are now in the same cage and very happy about it. They got in the cage this morning and went to each other and started preening and regurgitating and making the ehehehehe noise that my little boy does when he is excited and really likes something (usually only does it for me and now our female grey). It was the best sight ever to see them so calm and then just playing with the toys in the cage. I call our female grey a minx as she loves our male grey and my boyfriend. Does anything for them, even rolls on her back and wants her stomach rubbed. Just when you think it is never going happen, suddenly progress is made. The next step is to get them into their flight suits to go outside and I am sure this will take a lot longer to persuade them it is fun to wear it.

What a story. I also can not imagine what you go through. You actually pick him up as well, very very brave. I would never ever attempt to pick up any of our greys when they don't want to be picked up. My bad days with our greys pale in comparisson. A bad day for me is our female not wanting to go into her cage in the morning and it taking me 20 minutes to persuade her to go in. I let out a big sigh of relief as I finally find the treat that works to get her in. We both end up happy, she has her treat and I am on time for work.

You should try to call biggles everyday if you can. We do this with our greys when we are away. We then get put on speaker phone and we chat away to them. One of them even puts his foot up to reach for the phone, hehe. I know for me it helps a alot just to hear their noises and talking.

Great work and it is good to see you are reading all the signs of when you bird doesn't want to be touched somewhere. Our male grey does that, gently moves my finger away with his beak and then I know he doesn't want to be touched. They speak their own language and we just need to tune into it...sort of like learning a foreign language...hard, frustrating, time consuming...but it all pays off in the end.

Sounds as though you are doing all the right things. If she wants to be left alone then leave her alone. Sit where she can see you and even start playing with the toys, read, eat etc. Our 5 month old female is like that with me and I leave her alone and she only comes to me when she wants to. I can see that she does watch what I am doing all the time though. Like last night I got out the watermelon and cut a slice and started eating it. I could see her out of the corner of my eye getting all fidgety and trying to decide how badly she wanted it. Finally she couldn't resist and flew over. These are the only little moments I have with her and my heart leaps with joy when she just comes to me for something. I have only touched her once on the head and that was 3 nights ago for about 5 min. I am thinking months down the road in terms of her getting used to me. I just calmly tell her that she is a good girl and that we have the rest of our lives to get to know each other. Our male grey was like this as well and he is now 1 year and a darling. Before when he was home with my boyfriend he wouldn't even sit in the same room with him. My boyfriend just left him alone and after a few months it all changed. They just need time to see what the routines are in their new family and how they fit in to this. If your bird flies to the floor and won't get up I would probably just make sure she was alright and let her do what she wants to while keeping an eye on her, as long as she is in no danger. I also work unitl 5pm, so they are only out 3 to 4 hours as well and have never had an problems with this.

I really feel for you and I know exactly what you are going through. 2 weeks is not much time. They need a lot of time to get adjusted to a new home and she is just figuring everything out and getting to know you. It's not that she doesn't want love and affection, but she is just not sure at the moment. Try placing a perch on the inside of the cage door and then when you have the door open place her on the perch and swing the door closed. I did this at the start with our male grey and he looked at me like oh no cage time and when he saw "phew" it's just the perch he relaxed and then before he knew it the door was closed. One time I even gave him something to eat on that perch but he had wised up and as soon as he saw me coming he would run as he knew the door was going to close. I actually tied string to the door, so I could pull the door closed while I sat on the sofa. A few times he wouldn't go in at all and I just left him sitting on the perch for the night. Got out the next morning and he was still sitting there. Next night he went into his cage no problems. They are little rascals and it is so hard to out smart them.

LOL, all I can think of is a chicken running around on the floor squawking. Seems as most of us have been through the dreaded time to go back in the cage nightmare. I just wanted to reassure you that it will get better, you just need to find a way that works for you to get her in the cage. Bribery is a very good weapon...there is always something that they can't resist. This morning for my little man it was my makeup brush. We wanted that so bad and I held it to me and wouldn't give it to him. He wanted it even worse then and leapt on to my hand, grabbed the brush and before he knew it he was in his cage. Usually I don't need anything to get him into his cage, but the last week has been a different story. For our little girl this morning it was a plam nut. Showed her the nut she flew straight to me, chomped into the nut and I held on to that nut and walked her to her cage and put her in.

I was just on you tube and saw that Tui has gone missing. Beware very sad video, will make you cry. I just wanted to say to Tui's dad how sorry I am that she has gone. We have all had inspiration from watching the things you accomplished with Tui and hope that she comes home safe. I also come from New Zeland and live overseas with our 2 greys and I know the commitment in the fact that you can never go back to New Zealand to live while you have parrots. Don't give up looking for her.

He is definately ready to learn to step up and it won't make him less friendly if you do it in the right way. I am teaching out 5 month old at the moment and she is coming along leaps and bounds. I even use this method to teach her to fly to me. Make it fun for him, show him a treat and put your hand up near his chest (not too low as they like to step up not down) and let him reach for the treat. Then move the treat away a bit and put your hand up so he has to step up to get the treat. At first he might just put one foot on your hand, give him the treat and praise him. After awhile it will be 2 feet, give him the treat and praise him. Just takes a lot of practice and there is no need to push him to get him to step up, make it so he is the one deciding to step up and you are just encouraging him.

Sorry, but I had to laugh the imagine of her clinging to the cage and you trying to pick her up. You are lucky she doesn't bite you, if I did that to our female she would have my finger off. I can say that I have also had these problems with our greys. Our female who is 5 months is like that, she won't go back in her cage for me. I decided that I had to let her out and I would deal with it somehow. Yes it has taken me a long time to get her in sometimes. I am lucky in that she loves food, so when I want her to go back in I have her favourite food and she hops on my hand and I quickly put her in the cage. You can also try a perch on the cage door and get her on that perch and just swing the door closed. I used to do that with our male grey when he went through the phase of not wanting to go in the cage. Believe me it gets better and just takes time and patience. We taught our greys that they could not come out of the cage if they didn't step up. So we used treats and would open the door and give them a treat and then when they wanted the next treat they had to step up, even one foot at first and then after a lot of practice they got the idea and now everytime we open the door they are waiting with one foot raised ready to step up.